Former Prince George’s County, Maryland, police officer Stephen Downey was sentenced to six months in jail after being convicted of assault and misconduct in office. Downey was called to a drug store, where he found a homeless man sleeping in a shipping container in the store’s parking lot. He handcuffed the man and placed him in a patrol car and fastened the man’s seat belt. Downey then punched the man in the face several times. Downey said he believed the man was going to headbutt him.
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Former Prince George’s County, Maryland, police officer Stephen Downey was sentenced to six months in jail after being convicted of assault and misconduct in office. Downey was called to a drug store, where he found a homeless man sleeping in a shipping container in the store’s parking lot. He handcuffed the man and placed him in a patrol car and fastened the man’s seat belt. Downey then punched the man in the face several times. Downey said he believed the man was going to headbutt him.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2G8XN0N
via IFTTT
A UK company is marketing a new range of knives without sharp tips in response to soaring knife crime levels, which just hit another decade high.
Sheffield-based company Viners has produced the “Assure” range, square-ended knives which are “shaped to reduce and prevent injuries, accidents and fatalities.”
The knives were “repeatedly tested to ensure the tip does not pierce skin intentionally or otherwise,” the company told the Independent.
Data published by the Ministry of Justice yesterday shows that knife crime offenses in England and Wales have soared to the highest level in a decade.
26,364 offenses were recorded in the year to September 2019, which represents a 3% increase on last year and the highest number since 2009.
Attempts by the government to tackle the issue have been derided as “racist” by leftists and the media despite the fact that official statistics show 73% of offenders are from a black or ethnic minority background.
When an initiative was launched to put anti-stabbing messages on chicken takeaway boxes, the scheme was soon cancelled because it was seen as bigoted to assume that black people like to eat fried chicken (fact check; they do).
As I have documented, the knife crime problem in the UK and particularly London continues to get worse because the underlying causes are not being addressed.
The scaling back of “stop and search” because it’s “racist”.
The ongoing emasculation of UK police forces who are being trained that mean words and ‘hate crime’ is more important than people dying.
Fatherless black homes.
UK street gangs becoming more violent to compete with immigrants from countries like Congo and Somalia.
The ongoing mass importation of people from violent countries in general.
Drill rap music that encourages young people to commit murder.
Political leaders like Sadiq Khan refusing to even admit there’s a problem to protect their own pathetic legacies.
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One Bank Is Selling Its Super-Rich Clients Products To Predict The 2020 Election
As if there already wasn’t enough at stake during this year’s election, what with the Democrats wholeheartedly pushing for full-on socialism, investment bank Julius Baer has decided to make it even more interesting.
The bank is pitching its rich clients on a way to bet on the U.S. election, selling as much as $40 million of structured notes tied to large American companies hinging on which party will hold the White House next year, according to Bloomberg. In theory, you pick the note that corresponds to the winning party and you should be able to profit.
The bank is selling “Democrat Victory” notes that include names like Ford and Walmart, while its “Republican Victory” notes include names like Google, Amazon and Citigroup. To us, there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference between these portfolios, which seem to be more of a marketing gimmick.
The bank oversees 422 billion Swiss francs and intends on “wading into the debate” about the political drivers of our current market rally. And while structured products to play the election may seem like an odd idea in the U.S., they are big business in Switzerland, where they brought in 94 billion Swiss francs in the third quarter alone.
Martin Raab, a Zurich-based senior portfolio manager at Asset Security Trust said: “I am sure that other issuers will shortly come up with some similar thematic baskets for their retail clients.”
The notes have a term of one year and pay out the performance at maturity. They have entry costs between 1.28% and 1.4% and are more expensive than a typical ETF. “Structured products use derivatives to track the performance of an underlying asset,” Bloomberg notes.
Strategists continue to keep President Trump’s policies in focus as we move closer to the election. Jefferies Group strategists recently wrote that industries like healthcare and financials would see “quite significant changes” if a Democrat wound up winning the election.
Raab also took exception to some of the baskets, questioning why Amazon would be in the Republican-themed basket, especially since the company just lost a cloud computing contract with the U.S. government. He also points out that a Democratic administration likely wouldn’t cause outperformance in names like Coca-Cola.
Vontobel Holding AG sold similar notes to predict the 2016 election. More than 80% of the firm’s customers bet on Hillary Clinton.
And most importantly, we hope no one spoils this for Julius Baer and reminds them that no matter who wins, it’s Fed policy that is truly catalyzing the insane mania behind today’s market.
After the article on the Great Replacement in Belgium, I present you the following translation of an article by Polémia on the situation in Switzerland. The Swiss situation is unique, if only because of the country’s objective excellence and exceptional quality of life, and the extraordinary practice of direct democracy. Thus we have the rather rare situation of citizens actually being allowed to vote on whether and in what conditions new people should be allowed into their country.
Make no mistake: the scale of demographic change is also tremendous in Switzerland, but mainly because of European immigration and even Europeans find it very difficult to accede to Swiss nationality (there is no birthright citizenship). Thus Switzerland provides a model how people might preserve a nice country in the future: a highly-selective, citizenist little republic founded on gentrified democratic localism.
Switzerland has experienced very significant immigration over the past decades. This immigration is a source of fears or even rejection on the part of a portion of the Swiss people. These fears concern basically two issues: competition on the labor market by Europeans and the challenge to the [Swiss] cultural model posed by non-Europeans; all the more so in that, recently, the integration of the non-European population is failing to be realized.
In the face of this, the Swiss authorities’ responses oscillate between openness and firmness. A firmness which is occasionally demanded by the people in the form of the referenda which are regularly organized in Switzerland. Selective immigration is not an empty slogan in this country, even if a part of the political opposition would like the government to go much further on this issue.
Very significant migration flows
Since the Second World War, Switzerland has experienced two significant waves of immigration. The first coincided with the industrial growth of the 50s and 60s. The second began in 1975 and has continued ever since.
After the Second World War, the Swiss government granted many residence permits to mostly European workers in a context of industrial recovery. Immigration was then suddenly stopped with the repatriation of almost 300,000 foreign workers during the economic crisis caused by the first oil shock of 1973. Every year since then, Switzerland has welcomed a rising and significant number of foreigners, in proportion to its population.
Whereas 92,000 immigrants permanently moved to the country in 1981, they were 146,000 in 2018. Net migration (immigrants minus emigrants) has always been positive for the 1962-2017 period. On average 163,000 more people entered the country every year than left during this period. . . .
A growing immigrant population
The foreign population is constantly increasing in Switzerland. It rose from 14% of the total population in 1980 to 25% today. The Swiss Confederation is among the countries with the highest proportion of residents born abroad.
The population of immigrant origin (foreigners born abroad, naturalized citizens born in Switzerland, or naturalized citizens and foreigners born in Switzerland with at least one parent born abroad) was estimated in 2017 to make up 37% of the population.
Among the resident non-European population, Asians[1] (165,000), Africans (109,000) and Turks (67,000) form the largest contingents. According the Pew Research Center, around 6% of the population is Muslim, around 400,000 people. According to Pew’s forecasts, the Muslim population could in 2050 make up between 8% and 12% of the Swiss population.
European immigration
Competition on the labor market between foreigners and citizens as well as the scale immigration have been criticized both with regard to European and non-European immigration. Several agreements on the free movement of EU citizens have been signed between Bern and the European Union since 2000, but they remain contested, in particular by the SVP (Swiss People’s Party). This party has, for many years, sought to annul these agreements. This has raised concerns among people living across the Swiss border, notably many Frenchmen.
Non-European immigration
While non-European immigration concerns only a minority of the population in Switzerland, several warning signs are showing that integration is proving difficult or even a failure for a portion of immigrants.
A study by the Zurich university of sciences came to the conclusion that 21% of young Muslims living in Switzerland consider that sharia law is superior to Swiss law.
At the extreme of radicalization, a Swiss central Islamic committee has been established with some 3,500 members. The organization has been accused of encouraging its members to engage in polygamy and female genital mutilation. Its members are also being sued for supporting Al Qaeda.
As in other European countries, the Gulf monarchies have been accused of flooding Islamic cultural centers with money. One of the authors of Qatar Papers [a book detailing Qatari financing of Islamic activities in Europe] explained in Geneva: “The goal is to take in charge every Muslim individual living Europe from cradle to grave.” The funds of the World Islamic League based in Saudi Arabia “are apparently financing mosques and organizations preaching a Wahhabi form of Islam” according to a professor at the University of Bern. Turkish mosques [in Switzerland] are apparently being financed by [Turkey’s] Directorate of Religious Affairs, a report from which asserts that Islam is superior to Christianity and Judaism, and that religious dialogue is unacceptable. One could enumerate many more such examples. Though Islamism is spreading in Switzerland, the country has many effective “watchdogs” who are active both in documenting these realities and in initiatives aiming to ban or at least reduce them.
A questionable integration
Whether in terms of welfare, crime, or social behavior, many statistics and incidents show that the ‘integration’ of a part of the non-Europeans is an empty slogan.
A recent study by the Federal Office of Statistics showed the over-representation of certain nationalities among welfare recipients. Thus at the end 2017, 83% of Somalians and 54% of Eritreans and Congolese living in Switzerland are on welfare. More generally, of the 350,000 beneficiaries of social assistance, 57% are foreigners.
Incivility is observed on many occasions: lack of respect (insults, spitting) towards lifeguards at certain swimming pools; sexual assaults and death threats against paramedics. On both cases, the staff pointed to migrants as the wrong-doers. Switzerland is also unable to prevent violent rivalries between gangs in neighborhoods of migrant origin, notably in the suburbs of Zurich, where gangs are fighting for the title of “Bronx of Zurich.”
Referenda on immigration
Swiss citizens have been invited to vote many times on immigration issues. The following issues have recently been subject to referenda in recent years:
A ban on the building of minarets (2009)
The actual deportation of foreign criminals (2010 and 2016)
The end of mass migration (2014)
The primacy of national law over international agreements (2018). This last proposal was rejected, even though unchosen immigration (family reunification, asylum) stems from international agreements and treaties signed by the country. As the lawyer J. L. Harouel has observed: “public liberties have been overridden by fundamental rights, which mainly benefit immigrants, who systematically accede to all the rights and advantages of European peoples.”
The expulsion of foreign criminals (2010 vote), the ban on building minarets, and the limitation of immigration all won the required double majority of both voters and cantons. However, the vote against mass immigration did not lead to new rules for the movement of people between Switzerland and the European Union, because of the gridlock of the EU institutions. A new referendum on the subject will normally be organized in 2020.
National preference and selective immigration
Despite significant immigration, Switzerland has long wished to maintain control over migratory flows and protect its labor market. The country’s selective immigration policy is evident in the conditions demanded to come, live, and work in the country:
For non-Europeans, access to the labor market is even more Draconian: there is a genuine national preference here. The employer must prove that no Swiss may be employed if a position is given to a foreigner. Quotas for foreign workers are in place. Integration into Swiss society is also evaluated over time.
The acquisition of Swiss nationality is very demanding: one must live in Switzerland for 12 years and know the country’s ways and customs in order to claim Swiss nationality. There is no birthright citizenship for second-generation immigrants.
Other initiatives aim to regain control of a situation which, in the eyes of many Swiss, is deteriorating:
The Swiss Confederation does not hesitate to deport foreign criminals, as 1000 were in 2017.
The Swiss government has not ratified the 2017 Marrakesh Pact on migration.
Some cantons, such as Tessin and Saint Gall, have banned the burqa.
On matters of asylum, a tough line is also being adopted:
Refugees will no longer be allowed to travel abroad.
In April 2019, the Federal Council took several measures to accelerate refugees’ entering the labor market, with a mandatory integration track (language-learning over three years, numbered targets for entry into the labor market, etc).
Those whose asylum claims have been rejected are less likely to be authorized to work in Switzerland.
Switzerland is remarkable in Europe for the rate of deportation of rejected asylum-seekers: 56% of deportation decisions are implemented, where the average is only 36% in Europe (and 12% in France).
In the face of significant migratory flows, the Swiss government has taken measures aiming to increase standards relative to immigration, to reduce immigration, and to defend the natives’ way of life.
The Swiss can, thanks to their democratic system, make proposals and express themselves on issues subject to referenda. They most recently affirmed their rejection of mass immigration. If the concrete measures to actually fulfill the popular will can, on some occasions, be disappointing, the referenda have enabled tougher policies to be adopted.
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.
Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.”
General Dwight D Eisenhower
Farewell address 1961
Congress just passed a near trillion dollar military budget at a time when the United States faces no evident state threats at home or abroad. Ike was right.
Illustrating Ike’s prescient warning, Brown University’s respected Watson Institute just released a major study which found that the so-called ‘wars on terror’ in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Pakistan have cost US taxpayers $6.4 trillion since they began in 2001.
The extensive study found that over 800,000 people have died as a result of these military operations, a third of them civilians. An additional 21 million civilians have been displaced by US military operations. According to the Pentagon, these US wars have so far cost each American taxpayer $7,623 – and that’s a very conservative estimate.
Most of this money has been quietly added to the US national debt of over $23 trillion. Wars on credit hide the true cost and pain from the public.
As General Eisenhower warned, military spending has engulfed the nation.
A trillion annual military budget represents just about half the world’s military expenditures. The Pentagon, which I’ve visited numerous times, is bustling with activity as if the nation was on a permanent war footing.
The combined US intelligence budget of some $80 billion is larger than Russia’s total military budget of $63 billion. US troops, warplanes and naval vessels are stationed around the globe, including, most lately, across Africa. And yet every day the media trumpets new ‘threats’ to the US. Trump is sending more troops to the Mideast while claiming he wants to reduce America’s powerful military footprint there. Our military is always in search of new missions. These operations generate promotions and pay raises, new equipment and a reason for being.
Back in the day, the Republican Party of General Eisenhower was a centrist conservative’s party with a broad world view, dedicated to lower taxes and somewhat smaller government. It was led by the Rockefellers and educated Easterners with a broad world view and respect for tradition.
Today’s Republican Party is a collection of rural interests from flyover country, handmaidens of the military industrial complex and, most important, militant evangelical Christians who see the world through the spectrum of the Old Testament. Israel’s far right has come to dominate American evangelists by selling them a bill of goods about the End of Days and the Messiah’s return. Many of these rubes see Trump as a quasi-religious figure.
Mix the religious cultists – about 25% of the US population – with the farm and Israel lobbies and the mighty military industrial complex and no wonder the United States has veered off into the deep waters of irrationality and crusading ardor. The US can still afford such bizarre behavior thanks to its riches, magic green dollar, endless supply of credit and a poorly educated, apathetic public too besotted by sports and TV sitcoms to understand what’s going on abroad.
All the war party needs is a steady supply of foreign villains (preferably Muslims) who can be occasionally bombed back to the early Islamic age. Americans have largely forgotten George W. Bush’s lurid claims that Iraqi drones of death were poised to shower poisons on the sleeping nation. Even the Soviets never ventured so deep into the sea of absurdity.
The military industrial complex does not care to endanger its gold-plated F-35 stealth aircraft and $13 billion apiece aircraft carriers in a real war against real powers. Instead, the war party likes little wars against weak opponents who can barely shoot back. State-run TV networks thrill to such minor scraps with fancy headlines and martial music. Think of the glorious little wars against Panama, Grenada, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Libya. Iran looks next.
The more I listen to his words, the more I like Ike.
These States Face Biggest Job Losses From Automation
Aside from the rantings of a small group of eccentric billionaires, humanity is mostly unprepared for the advent of automation and its impact on an economy that is already exhibiting unprecedented levels of wealth concentration among the wealthy. Some have estimated that automation will destroy 800 million jobs over the next ten years.
But if you’re trying to plan a career, or a life, that can withstand the transformative impact of automation, a team of researchers at Kempler Industries has analyzed data from the BLS Occupational Employment Statistics and determined the percent of potential job loss in different industries across all 50 US states.
The study also breaks job losses down by metropolitan area, with Las Vegas and Orlando taking the top two slots.
In order to create a foundation for this analysis, we looked at the top 170 most “at-risk” occupations, according to the University of Oxford’s “The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerisation” study.
When looking at the data, it’s clear that no state is immune to automation. Overall, roughly 41 million, or 28% of all U.S. jobs, are most susceptible to automation. Occupations within the service industry are some of the hardest hit in terms of being at risk for automation, specifically cashiers, retail salespersons and fast food employees.
An excerpt from a soon to be released book, “A Very Stable Genius” (which appeared in Saturday’s edition of the Washington Post) apparently was written with the intent of presenting Donald Trump as a crazed, unstable individual.
The authors of this hit job (two Washington Post reporters) clearly relied on Rex Tillerson, Gary Cohn and Jim Mattis as primary sources. But rather than expose Trump as mentally unfit to be President, the authors unwittingly expose their own extreme bias and highlight how the men Trump named to key positions in his administration–Tillerson at State, Cohn at the White House and Mattis at DOD–tried to undermine the President and drug their feet in carrying out Trump’s directives.
These men, in my view, are bureaucratic cowards. They should have resigned if they felt so strongly about Trump’s violations. But they wanted to hang on to their little pieces of turf.
So on July 20, 2017, Mattis invited Trump to the Tank for what he, Tillerson, and Cohn had carefully organized as a tailored tutorial. What happened inside the Tank that day crystallized the commander in chief’s berating, derisive and dismissive manner, foreshadowing decisions such as the one earlier this month that brought the United States to the brink of war with Iran. The Tank meeting was a turning point in Trump’s presidency. Rather than getting him to appreciate America’s traditional role and alliances, Trump began to tune out and eventually push away the experts who believed their duty was to protect the country by restraining his more dangerous impulses.
Yep. Trump’s a bad, crazy, deranged individual because he did not want to continue the failed policies of the last 20 years. That’s the complaint of these Deep Staters in a nutshell. And Donald Trump, unlike the serpentine politicians that infest Washington, did not speak praise to the faces of these clowns and then backstab them in the press and to other members of his Administration. Nope. He called them out to their face. Can’t have that. Telling people off to their faces is just so uncouth. Always better, according to the Swamp creatures, to say one thing to a person’s face and then trash the hell out of them when they are not around.
Let’s look at the key issues discussed in this brief that put the reporters panties in a knot.
“The post-war international rules-based order is the greatest gift of the greatest generation.” Mattis then gave a 20-minute briefing on the power of the NATO alliance to stabilize Europe and keep the United States safe.
Trump’s response should not have surprised these guys if they had paid attention to the campaign:
We should make money off of everything.
” Trump proceeded to explain that NATO, too, was worthless. U.S. generals were letting the allied member countries get away with murder, he said, and they owed the United States a lot of money after not living up to their promise of paying their dues. “They’re in arrears,” Trump said, reverting to the language of real estate. He lifted both his arms at his sides in frustration. Then he scolded top officials for the untold millions of dollars he believed they had let slip through their fingers by allowing allies to avoid their obligations.“
Trump was exactly right with regards to NATO. It is an anachronism. The equivalent of maintaining the horse cavalry in the U.S. Army on the eve of World War II. But there is a lot of money and high paying jobs for senior officers to be had. Cannot let that sugar tit dry up.
The men at around the table also tried to thwart Trump on Iran:
He wanted out of the Iran nuclear deal that President Obama had struck in 2015, which called for Iran to reduce its uranium stockpile and cut its nuclear program.
It’s the worst deal in history!” Trump declared.
“Well, actually . . .,” Tillerson interjected.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Trump said, cutting off the secretary of state before he could explain some of the benefits of the agreement.
“They’re cheating. They’re building. We’re getting out of it. I keep telling you, I keep giving you time, and you keep delaying me. I want out of it.”
Here again Trump never hid his intent with respect to Obama’s Iran deal. So why the surprise on the part of Mattis and Tillerson?
Next up, Afghanistan:
Trump erupted to revive another frequent complaint: the war in Afghanistan, which was now America’s longest war. He demanded an explanation for why the United States hadn’t won in Afghanistan yet, now 16 years after the nation began fighting there in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Trump unleashed his disdain, calling Afghanistan a “loser war.”
That phrase hung in the air and disgusted not only the military leaders at the table but also the men and women in uniform sitting along the back wall behind their principals. They all were sworn to obey their commander in chief’s commands, and here he was calling the war they had been fighting a loser war.
“You’re all losers,” Trump said. “You don’t know how to win anymore.”
You may not like the tone, but Trump’s position was not new nor should it have been unexpected. To his credit he called out the Generals to their face. And he was factually correct. We defeated the Japanese and German armies in four years. Here we are entering our 19th year of a meaningless war in Afghanistan and all we have to show are losses of hundreds of millions of dollars and the deaths and maiming of thousands of U.S. military personnel. Damn straight Mr. President. We’ve been pouring U.S. taxpayer dollars down an open sewer that masquerades as a country. For what purpose?
Then we get this “pity party”:
They stunned nearly everyone in the room, and some vowed that they would never repeat them. Indeed, they have not been reported until now.
“I wouldn’t go to war with you people,” Trump told the assembled brass. Addressing the room, the commander in chief barked, “You’re a bunch of dopes and babies.”
For a president known for verbiage he euphemistically called “locker room talk,” this was the gravest insult he could have delivered to these people, in this sacred space. The flag officers in the room were shocked. Some staff began looking down at their papers, rearranging folders, almost wishing themselves out of the room. A few considered walking out. They tried not to reveal their revulsion on their faces, but questions raced through their minds.
“How does the commander in chief say that?” one thought. “What would our worst adversaries think if they knew he said this?”
Grab the damn fainting couch. Trump told the assembled military leaders who had presided over a military stalemate in Afghanistan and the rise of ISIS as “losers.” Not a one of them had the balls to stand up, tell him to his face he was wrong and offer their resignation. Nope.
They preferred to endure such abuse in order to keep their jobs. Pathetic.
This excerpt in the Washington Post tells the reader more about the corruption of the Deep State and their mindset than it does about Trump’s so-called mental state. Trump acted no differently in front of these senior officers and diplomats than he did on the campaign trail.
He was honest. That is something the liars in Washington cannot stomach.
In “Spectacular” Jail Break, 75 Prisoners Including 6 Contract Killers Flee Paraguay Jail Through Tunnel
Someone has been watching too many reruns of The Shawshenk Redemption.
In a dramatic prison escape that would make both Andy Dufresne and El Chapo proud, no less than 75 prisoners, all members of a violent Brazilian gang – one of South America’s most notorious – which also included six contract killers, launched what Bloomberg called a “spectacular jail break” in Paraguay.
The Pedro Juan Caballero city jail entrance on Jan. 19 after dozens of inmates escaped; Photo: AP.
According to the newspaper ABC, the prisoners pulled a page out of one of Stephen King’s most popular stories, and fled through a large tunnel.
Un túnel, que no pudo haber sido cavado de un día para el otro, sirvió para que decenas de reos del PCC escapen de la penitenciaría de Pedro Juan Caballero.https://t.co/3BCJV65d3o#NPY#NosConecta
Or maybe they didn’t, because as the country’s Interior Minister Euclides Acevedo told the TV station Telefuturo, the tunnel, which started in a cell and ended outside the prison walls, may have been a decoy to mask the fact that most of the escapees simply walked out of the main door. And as an indication of the sheer chaos and corruption in Latin America’s penal system, investigators believe some of the former inmates may even have left the prison in previous days.
The escaped prisoners were members of the drug gang First Command of the Capital, known as PCC, Justice Minister Cecilia Perez told Telefuturo; the gang, sporting more than 10,000 members, is one of Brazil’s largest criminal organizations. The PCC dominates the drug trade and prisons in Sao Paulo and in recent years has expanded its operations into other countries including Paraguay; in 2012, the group unleashed a wave of violence that included more than 200 murders in protest of the election of Fernando Haddad as Sao Paulo’s mayor.
After the escape, no less than five prison guards were arrested and the head of the prison – who was conveniently on holiday at the time – as been fired, news channel NPY reported.
That said, if Andy Dufresne’s historic jailbreak was indeed the inspiration for the escape, then the Paraguay version appears to have been the work of rank amateurs: as Bloomberg notes, the tunnel was the work of days if not weeks, as the amount of soil shifted could not have passed unnoticed and was easily visible from the prison corridor, Perez explained as television images showed dozens of bags of soil piled up in a cell.
Así es el túnel por el que escaparon más de 90 reclusos de la cárcel de Pedro Juan Caballero. Todos son miembros del Primer Comando Capital (PCC).
Clothes are seen in a tunnel entrance where inmates escaped from Pedro Juan Caballero city jail. Source: AP
Yet even if this particular escape was more luck than skill, we are confident the same group will have ample opportunity to show off its capabilities in the near future. According to InSight Crime, which investigates organized crime in Latin America, the PCC has also been blamed for several large heists including the biggest armed robbery in Paraguay’s history, in which the headquarters of security company Prosegur in Ciudad del Este was attacked by a gunmen who broke in using long tunnels and walked away with $40 million in an assault that was carried out with a wide array of weapons, including AK 47s, C4 explosives, infrared weapons, snipers and even anti-aircraft guns and a helicopter. We described that particular robbery in April 2017 in “In “Spectacular Heist” Dozens Of Heavily-Armed Robbers Steal $40 Million From Paraguay Vault.”
In 2017, the Wall Street Journal reported that the PCC was trying to recruit members of Colombia’s FARC rebel group for their expertise in heavy weaponry.
Residents in Ponce, a city in the southern part of Puerto Rico, discovered the stash of supplies and blogger Lorenzo Delgado posted the video footage above. People broke into the building after Puerto Rico was hit by a powerful earthquake last week.
With anger spreading in the U.S. territory after video of the event in Ponce appeared on Facebook, Gov. Wanda Vázquez quickly fired the director of the island’s emergency management agency.
The governor said she had ordered an investigation after learning the emergency supplies had been piled in the warehouse since Hurricane Maria battered Puerto Rico in September 2017.
Vázquez said inaction by the fired official, Carlos Acevedo, was unacceptable.
“There are thousands of people who have made sacrifices to help those in the south, and it is unforgivable that resources were kept in the warehouse,” the governor said…
…The mayor of Ponce, María Meléndez, said he had not known about the warehouse and its contents.
“This is outrageous,” she said. “Everyone knows what us mayors went through after Hurricane Maria to try and get help to our cities and how we’ve worked these weeks to provide basic supplies to people affected by earthquakes. Those involved owe us an explanation.” (source)
The White House was criticized for a lackluster response.
Even as pressure has mounted for him to release emergency assistance, the president has maintained his assertions that the money will not be well spent. On Wednesday, the White House budget office made clear how those assertions had shaped relief.
To gain access to $8.2 billion in recovery money and $8.3 billion in disaster prevention funds, Puerto Rico will have to submit budget plans to its federally mandated fiscal control board, which will track where the money goes. It will also have to bolster its property registration database…
…the fiscal control board is viewed in Puerto Rico as unaccountable to the people. And Puerto Rican officials are not inclined to tell workers they will be paid less than the minimum wage. With regard to the property and deed registrations, Puerto Ricans have long used informal ownership records.
The restriction relating to the electrical grid may just be a practical one: Congress has already appropriated a separate tranche of money specifically for the electrical grid, though it has yet to be allocated. (source)
Given the fact that all this aid was hidden in a warehouse while people struggled for two years, it’s difficult to dispute that the new funds could likewise be misused.
Commenting on the news, Donald Trump, Jr., “I look forward to the Wall to wall coverage of this now that we found out @realDonaldTrump was right all along.”
